Gameday Prep: Bills at Packers

The Bills might not show up today, but we’re not mailing this post in.

No one seems to be giving the Bills a shot on the road at one of the best home crowds in the country. The Packers have one of the best quarterbacks in the league, a strong defense led by a great linebacker, and play in a tiny home market yet continue to find success. God dammit.

That’s Spero on the right there looking fancy in his CBS jacket. He’s the play-by-play guy for the Lakers and actually handled the international feed of the last Super Bowl. He was also on CSI: NY. So there, that’s the guy who is not Ian Eagle. I’ll take it.

Other Games We Get to Watch
New England at NY Jets, 4pm on CBS (Jim Nantz, Phil Simms)
Seattle at Denver, 4 pm on FOX (Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa)

I think we will all be keeping it on CBS after the Bills lose. That Seattle game sounds AWFUL.

Stats: You can get stats pretty much anywhere these days, but I go with Yahoo because my fantasy football teams are tied in there.

Speaking of fantasy football, I think some people took my post about “The League” a bit out of context. I’m going to give it a few more chances, I just wasn’t a bit fan of the start of this season. I’ll keep you posted after a few more episodes.

Things to Watch In Case of Blowout:

Napoleon Dynamite- FOX – The discription calls it “disarmingly funny.” I call it a movie with the best opening credits sequence since Monster’s Inc.

Philadelphia at Montreal in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals – NHL Network – This wasn’t the best series in the history of hockey, but watching old playoff hockey is a thousand times better than getting excited about scrimmages, or maybe blowout football games.

Cloverfield – FX – (2 pm) Let’s see what happens first: the Bills go down by three scores, or you figure out the ending to the movie. Either way, you’re going to wind up a bit irked by the whole thing.

Things Worth Knowing/Mocking/Reading

About a month ago I sprained my ankle playing hockey. The good news is I can walk on it again, but I’m still struggling to get back to 100 percent.

This means that every night I sleep with a bag of ice on my ankle. To avoid terrible frostbite, I put a very thin cloth on my foot and put the bag on top. Recently, I’ve taken to using the “rally towel” that was handed out at the Bills/Browns Monday Night game. Sponsored by Time Warner Cable, it advertised the “Battle of Lake Erie” that probably killed every Bills fan over 85. Needless to say, the towel is working pretty well.

So thanks Time Warner Cable, for pairing a terribly scarring football game with my lingering ankle injury. Along with your incredibly spotty digital cable and lack of NFL Network, you three are a match made in hell.

This week seemed to be about two things: Marshawn Lynch and bowling ball shots. We’ll get to that first one later, but the tailgate police did strike a chord with a lot of people.

I’m glad everything is sorted out now, but the thing that struck me out of all this was in Wawrow’s follow up piece:

“I’ve got mixed feelings on that, but it has been getting bigger and bigger and more expensive,” Johnson said, noting he spent close to $1,500 on cherry liqueur last year.

Holy crap, $1500 on booze you’re not drinking is absolutely insane. Exactly how much booze is that? Let’s do the math here: assume it’s a decent priced bottle of $25 dollar liqueur. That’s 60 bottles per year, and with the Toronto games taken out of the equation that’s 60 bottles for eight home tailgates.

In other words, he’s going through 7.5 bottles of cherry liqueur per game, and much more if he’s giving out the cheaper stuff. For as much controversy as this caused, the NFL is doing this guy a favor by cutting off the free booze for strangers. Now he can take that extra cash and go buy himself something nice at the end of the season.

Maybe a shotgun that dispenses shots? Kitten Mittens? With that kind of scratch, the sky’s the limit.

One of the perks of having a smartphone is that sports leagues are starting to get their act together when it comes to applications. The NFL Mobile app for Verizon is pretty cool, and will come in handy when Thursday Night Football comes around and I can’t watch it.

Another good one is the Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football app. It’s not the best option to stay updated on the games, but checking your fantasy score from anywhere is something that absolutely should happen in this day and age. Even though it told me I lost last week, I liked knowing my fate right away.

PACKERS (-13) over Bills
Super Bowl contenders blow out crummy teams at home. Especially crummy teams with quarterbacks that generate e-mails like this (from Jack in New York): “Did you see Trent Edwards during that final drive? I’ve never seen someone look that terrified of having to lead their team. He’s the perfect QB for the Bills. He crushes their hearts on the first game of the season so that their fans don’t get their hopes up for the rest of the season.” You could say he’s their Dr. Kevorkian. Which brings me to another rule: Anytime a team is laying 13 at home to a quarterback who can be successfully compared to Jack Kevorkian, you lay the 13.

(Random thought: How much will you enjoy the Brandon Jackson Fantasy Free Agency Stampede careening into a guardrail if the Packers trade for Marshawn Lynch next week? And has any random running back ever had more pressure on him than Jackson in Week 2? Not only is Jackson being asked to save Green Bay’s running game but something like 550,000 fantasy teams that sucked in Week 1. My take: I don’t think he’s up for it.)

Actually, this one is directly related to the Bills. Strange. In any event, Simmons brings up something I’ve wanted to weigh in on all week: Marshawn Lynch.

Now I know Aaron Rodgers said some nice things about Money on media day and all that is fun, but I just don’t see the Bills trading him next week. I know plenty of people want to see him off the team at all costs, and I heard an entire press box say they would trade him for a 5th round pick at a high school football game this weekend, but that’s a load of garbage.

I could mount all this evidence up to support my point of view, including the interesting way this region responds to certian elements of character, but I’ll do this instead: no one seems to understand how trades work in the NFL. No one. Not analysts, not fans, and certainly no one who says the Bills are moving Marshawn after this week’s game.

The reason Marshawn won’t be eating large quantities of cheese in seven days is simple: nothing works the way people say it will in the NFL. It just doesn’t happen. So, things will turn out differently. I’m not saying he doesn’t get moved, I’m just saying I don’t expect it to happen within the next fortnight.

But whatever, what do I know?

“Tempered Expectations” Video of the Week

“Too Afraid to Love You” – The Black Keys

People to Follow on Twitter
If you like news, or talking to people, you should have a Twitter account. If you’re a Bills fan, you should follow a few of these people:

3 Comments

Surely you have seen the opening sequence of “Super Troopers.” Watch is about 4 times in a row: it’s the best way to skip over the dreadful pregame shows that keep effing showing “wide right” and the “music city miracle.”